Teddy has decided to share his fabulous texture paste recipes, we love playing with this stuff on canvas and on cards.

Before we bet onto the gooey stuff we will show you a canvas made with it (mixed with paint for colour of course).

And some cards too, I love playing with this stuff, and I love stencils too!!

Great effects with paint on the stamps too.

So now for the recipes 🙂

Rough Texture Paste

1/2 cup Baking Soda

2 Tablespoons white school glue or PVA

1-2 Tablespoons White Acrylic Paint

(some water may be necessary)

Instructions: I took an air tight container and put in my baking soda. I then added the glue, acrylic paint and started mixing. I used a couple of disposable chopsticks to mix it up. I just mixed to get a smooth consistency, I added a few drops of water to get it to the consistency I wanted. There are many types of texture mediums in the store, from light to heavy, so the amount of water you add will depend on the heaviness of the texture you are looking for. Done!

(The mixture keeps well in the air tight container……..some of the moisture float on top, just give it a stir and it will be good to go!)

Instructions: I began by mixing all the above ingredients with a bit of water until I had the consistency I was looking for. I tested the texture by letting the medium drop from my stir stick. If it flattened out quickly into the rest of the mixture, I added too much water. I fixed this by adding more of the talcum powder until I felt the texture would hold nicely when applied to a mask. Personally, I like the talcum powder version better than the baking soda! Just use an old credit card or a pallet knife to apply the mixture to your mask or stencil….you’ll love the results!

Teddy has decided that we want to keep a record of all our information we have collected over the years, so he wants to do a Thursday Tip article each week (well we will see how long this lasts anyway).

Here he is on his first day at Big School this year, he is gorgeous isn’t he, and what a great helper he is to me as my creative director in the craft room!!

BASIC STAMPING: INKS AND STAMP PADS

Ink & Stamp Pads are the rubber stamper’s palette. A wide array of colors and types are available.

DYE BASED INK:

Acid free, quick drying, fade resistant and smear proof when dry, dye ink is fabulous for general stamping. These inks will dry on regular paper or cardstock, vellum, glossy stock or metallic coated stock. Dye ink is a semi transparent ink and lighter colours will not ‘cover’ image beneath it. It and is also great for colouring with Alcohol Markers.

Acid free, quick drying, fade resistant and smear prof when dry, permanent inks are great for general stamping. These inks are great for scrapbooking and stamping onto photos as they are archival safe (always check the label). When stamping on photos, do not heat set, but allow ample drying time for the ink to cure and become permanent. These inks can be used on glass, plastic, acrylic or metal quite successfully when heat set and then allowed to cure for several days. (On a glass surface these inks are semi-permanent, since they can be completely removed with alcohol.)

Permanent Dye Inks are Solvent based and are perfect for using for colouring images with water based pencils, paints, chalks, crayons and other watercolour mediums.

Examples of Permanent Dye Inks are StazOn, Memories, Ranger Archival

PIGMENT INK PADS:

Known for their very bright and opaque colors, pigment ink is thicker and slower to dry, making it perfect for heat embossing. Pigment ink will dry on any surface that is not coated, since it requires absorption in to the surface for drying. Heat setting with your embossing heat tool will speed the drying time when you do not wish to emboss. When using pigment ink on coated stock such as metallic, matte or glossy, heat embossing is required, since the ink will not dry.

These pads are filled with clear, slightly (blue) tinted glycerin base or a slightly pink pigment base which are all forms of embossing fluid which is especially formulated for use with heat embossing powders. The slight tint makes it easier to see where the image that has been stamped is.

There are hybrid inks that take the best qualities of both die and pigment inks.

Colorbox Fluid Chalk Ink has the dense, matte lustre of chalk pastels in a fast drying archival ink. So many beautiful muted chalk like colours that can be blended while still damp, or so very opaque for coverage when dry, they can be buffed to a shiny finish. They are ideal for paper, foil, clay and many other surfaces, can be heat set to be permanent and waterproof.

Ranger Distress Ink has the slow drying and workability of a pigment ink as well as the lightness of a dye ink that it is. They stay wetter for longer allowing you to emboss, or to blend and shade like no other ink without getting lines from DTP techniques. These inks ‘colour wick’, meanin they will spread when spritzed with water to achieve tone on tone effects. The colours are extremely stable and will not bread down when wet or heated. The colours are gorgeous.

Brilliance and Mica Magic ink pads have the opacity of pigment inks as they have added mica pigment to them, give a brilliant sheen while being very quick drying. These are lovely to work with and create wonderful depth of colour and shimmer to any stamped image.